Valentine's Special: My Surprise Wedding

Like, for real. I had no clue.

I wrote this blog up in the week following our marriage. There's part of me that wants to go through and edit it, but more than anything...I want to honor the truth and excitement I had, newly married, dreams coming true.

Having been one to journal my whole life, I love the truth that comes out in the moment. Sometimes it’s hard to look back on things we’ve written and I know I’ve found my voice more in writing over the last 10 years. That said, I can’t take away this young, soon to be mom’s, excitement and see naivety. She had never been so happy and all the unimportant details were everything to her. So I will leave them and warn you, she left nothing out.

As I have posted small bits about our unusual wedding, I have gotten a lot of questions and comments.

How could you not know?

Well, we’d been together for ten years. I was six months pregnant after trying to conceive for 18 months. We had a miscarriage, fertility meds, and many sad months of not understanding why this would not happen. We had been through a lot, and I had proposed to him almost every day 😂. My husband is a thinker, he likes to have everything in order, he struggles with big decisions, and marriage was not one he took lightly. I knew he would marry me, I had given up on a big flashy wedding. I was ok with that, I wanted him and our son. I think my dad said it best when he quoted Jean Jacques Rosseau,

“He who is the slow in making a promise is the most faithful in the performance of it.”

In short, I had no idea. Not any inkling that this was happening. I was frustrated that it hadn’t happened but elated that I was having a baby and knew he would marry me one day. I had given up on a fairytale wedding, and then he gave me just that. Even if I had been told it was happening, I wouldn’t have believed it. Seriously.

I would DIE!!! (Lot’s of people experience anxiety when they hear about this rare wedding)

I think there were some, including my photographer, who worried I would be upset that I didn’t get to micromanage the details of the day. I was not. Oh my gosh it was so legit to have it all done for me. It was the best day of my life. I was in awe that Brian and my family had pulled this together, it felt like a dream, a movie, it was so hard to believe it was real and my life. It was more than I could have ever dreamed. My mom and sister-in-law thought of everything. My brothers and dad covered for him and kept me from being pissed when he was on the phone and “surfing” nonstop. All of my little nieces and my nephew managed to stay quiet. It was a joint effort. It was beautiful.

There was ZERO stress. This wedding may not be for everyone, but there will never be anyway to top what it was for me.

What about those who couldn’t be there?

This was hard. My list of bridesmaids was long, too long. There were so many who had been through so much with us. There were plenty of our family members who weren’t there. In the end, Brian did this for me. He knew that more than anything, I needed my brothers, their families, and my parents to be there with me. My family is my whole world, and there was a good chance this would become impossible in the coming year.

He put this together in only two days, and his only focus was giving me a wedding that I no longer thought was possible. He honored me with this decision, and his focus was only on me. I will never be able to express what that meant to me. Feelings were hurt, and some were upset, but a marriage is about two people. We were becoming a family; he didn’t just become my husband; he bared a part of himself in this act that is rarely seen and that I treasure deeply. He did this for me, and it’s the most beautiful and meaningful thing he could have done.

*we had a killer reception 10 months later with all the people.

In the end, it was the experience and the incredible act put forth. The greatest and most elaborate weddings have no promise of survival. Our marriage has not been a fairytale, I don't know that one truly exists. I am forever grateful that I didn't get the wedding I dreamed of as a child, this taught me and changed me in so many ways. That's another blog for another day.